I have always been in awe of people with creatively carved Halloween pumpkins. At our house, we are lucky to get two eye triangles of approximately the same size. But this is my year! World Wildlife Fund has posted cute, simple wildlife pumpkin stencils on the web. There are several designs: a monarch butterfly, dolphins, gorillas, coral, polar bears, rhinos, tigers, turtles, the African plain, and of course the WWF panda. For all stencils, the pattern must be printed, taped to the pumpkin, then holes are poked around the pattern. The pumpkin is cut using the pattern, leaving you with a beautiful, creative pumpkin! Easy, impressive, and FREE. And what kid doesn’t love animals?

Since 1961, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has been working to conserve nature. With almost 5 million global members, they work at every level from grassroots to government to protect natural areas and wildlife with a special focus on endangered species. WWF works to advance science to create a world where human needs are met in harmony with nature. According to Charity Navigator, WWF is a four star (top rated) charity meaning they use donations the way they say they will.

A lot of us carve pumpkins for Halloween, so why not do something other than traditional jack-o-lanterns this year? When you get compliments from your neighbors (and you WILL get compliments), steer them to World Wildlife Fund. The more people know about this first class organization, the closer WWF will get to accomplishing it’s worthwhile goals.

Here’s a slideshow of all the available stencils, plus information on each endangered animal or ecosystem.  Just click a thumbnail to see a larger image and start the slideshow.

Ahh, science. Here at our house, we are quite comfortable with our geekiness and make an effort to pass it along to the kids. While it’s easy to talk about things like littering while on a walk or the birds that visit the backyard, the subject of energy takes some creativity. The people at OWI have been building solar powered toys since 1980, and their easy to build kit gave us the perfect opportunity to talk about energy sources and renewable vs. non-renewable energy, right in our own kitchen. OWI sent the Five Hens a Robotikit 6 in 1 Educational Solar Kit (retail price $19.95) to try out, and the Little Red family was lucky enough to play with it.

The kit is designed for kids ages 10 and up, but in our house we have a 6 year old and a 3 year old, so we did more of the building than would be necessary with older kids. When you first open the 6 in 1 Educational Solar Kit, you’ll find a lot of pieces, mostly plastic, that you have to cut apart. The box states “no tools required” which is true, but separating the pieces was a lot easier with wire cutters. The plastic parts are well made and fit together nicely. It was a bit of a surprise to find that you have to assemble the main components (gearbox and solar cell pod) before you can build the various toys. (If you are doing this with young children, put them together before the kids join you- it will save time and keep them from driving you crazy while you do stuff they can’t help with.) Once you have those two things done and all your pieces separated, you can get to work on the toys! The directions are almost completely illustrated and very easy to follow, and once you get the hang of it the creations go together pretty quickly.

Once we had one built (the Solar Revolving Plane- a prop driven plane on one side of a pillar and a solar cell and counter weight on the other- was our first), we put it by the window to make it go, and… nothing. We had unwisely decided to try this toy during the first snowstorm of the season, so the sky was very overcast. But in the directions it says that you need a sunny day OR a 100 Watt or greater halogen light. We pulled a garage work light inside, shined it on the cell, and voila, we had a working solar toy!

Now you may be picturing a little plane slowly revolving around a pillar, but let me tell you, this thing really goes! The kids squealed with laughter as it zipped around in circles, then quickly slowed down as soon as the light was removed. The Solar Car zoomed around the kitchen floor (not so fast that it would get away from you outside, but your kids would have to hustle), stopping only when we ran out of cord for our light. The Solar Airboat was a favorite, as we put it in a pan of water to watch it go. Our kids really liked the Solar Windmill (which surprised us a bit) and tried it with all the various propellors as well as the windmill blades. They had fun predicting what would happen with the different sized blades, and then testing their theories. (Welcome to the Scientific Process, my children.) And once they were comfortable with the kit, they were able to help with the building, which involved them even more. And we did “Parent Tests”: we all stuck our hands in the spinning blades (it doesn’t hurt or cause injury, and even my 3 year old laughed at it) and I grabbed the wires (which are exposed) with no effect (the toy runs at 1.2 volts, according to the manufacturer). The only one we had any trouble building was the Solar Puppy: you have to get the wires through little holes in a small space, making them tricky to loop through and connect. One complaint: the wires frayed out at the ends, so we had to keep twisting them to connect them. If there was a solid, crimped-on end or the wire strands were soldered together, assembly would be a bit easier.

The 6 in 1 Educational Solar Kit is a fun gizmo that teaches kids about solar energy as well as basic mechanical assembly. A 10 year old would be able to do most of it alone, but even for the younger set it’s fun and provides a lot of discussion opportunities. The company offers several solar kits as well as robotic building kits for beginner builders through advanced, which require some soldering experience (and makes Little Red Hen’s Rooster say “sweeeeeet”). We know that using a 300 watt Halogen light to play with a green energy educational toy is pretty hypocritical, but the toy is lots of fun and we will try it out in the sun as soon as we get a chance!

Golden Egg Rating

Overall, we give the 6 in 1 Educational Kit 5 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  It’s educational, a great hands on example of solar energy at work, and it’s an awful lot of fun.  It’s also reasonably priced, which certainly helps.  And it uses exactly zero batteries, which is always a plus in our house.

Every week I go to the library and check out about 15 children’s books to read at night to my children.  Well this week, one of the books, Silly Billy by Anthony Browne, had a big impact, quite by accident, with our family.  This book is about a little boy who worries a lot.  His grandmother gives him some worry dolls to put under his pillow.  The story explains that you are suppose to give each doll one of your worries and they will do the worrying for you while you sleep. When we were done reading, my son asked me if we could make some worry dolls.  This surprised me. I asked him if he worried about things and he said he did.  I had no idea he worried and of course this worried me.  You know how us moms can be, I flew into a panic that my son had anxiety issues.  After I calmed down, we all agreed to make worry dolls the next day.

Well, I had no idea how to make something called a worry doll. I had never heard of them.  So I got on the internet and Googled worry dolls.  To my shock, I found tons of websites about worry dolls and how to make them.  We decided to make our worry dolls from clothes pins, and we decorated them with googly eyes, pre-cut cloth squares for clothing, yarn hair and magic marker for the mouths and noses.  That night, my son gave a worry to each doll, put them under his pillow and went to sleep.  The next morning he got up and happily told me he slept wonderfully thanks to his worry dolls.  I was a happy mom again!

So give worry dolls a try and maybe they’ll put your kids worries to sleep too.  Here are some worry doll websites to take look at:

• Wisegeek.com: What are worry dolls?
• WikiHow: How to make a worry doll
• Disney Family: How to make worry dolls
• Global Marketplace: Fair Trade Worry dolls (in case you don’t want to make one,you can buy them too)

My little guy and I just had a blast making playdough together. It’s a fun, easy activity that everybody can help with, is easy to clean up, and has an end result you can enjoy for a long time. And it’s cheap to make! You will probably have to experiment with colors a bit. My son wanted orange, and we had to add a lot of yellow before it didn’t look like a big spaghetti dinner followed by a stomach virus. I got my recipe from Discovery Toys a long time ago.

Homemade Playdough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
3 dessert spoons cooking oil
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Food coloring (optional)

Mix all ingredients together. Add a few drops of food coloring if you like. Keep mixing until all lumps have been blended (I use a whisk). Put the mix in a saucepan (or just mix it in the saucepan) and cook it very slowly over medium heat. Stir continuously, and when the dough starts to come away from the side of the pan, take it off the heat. Remove the playdough from the pan (ADULTS DO THIS- IT IS HOT!) Let it cool a bit on plastic wrap, then have fun!